Tuesday, 20 December 2011

Radio Times TV Review of 2011

That venerable publishing colossus, Christmas perennial, and loyal Doctor Who advocate - the Radio Times - has revealed the results of another survey. Their website's "top 40 shows of" the year has placed the programme at a respectable number 8 - see the complete list here. Critic Jack Seale writes:

8. Doctor Who BBC1A sometimes frustrating, often majestic second series for showrunner Steven Moffat. He trusted his audience to deal with a torrent of ideas, particularly in the series’ bewildering major story arc about the apparent death of the Doctor and his inside-out relationship with River Song (Alex Kingston). But the real highlights were the one-offs: among the strongest were The Doctor’s Wife, an ingenious story of the Tardis made flesh that encapsulated the Doctor’s fundamental Flying Dutchman predicament; the simple retro spooks of Night Terrors; and The Girl Who Waited, a stripped-down story that asked for and got a best-ever performance from Karen Gillan. More often than not, Moffat and his muse, Matt Smith, gave kids (big and small) sci-fi thrills of extraordinary quality and ambition.